While attention has been towards Hinkley C, oop north Toshiba (aka Nugen) have been quietly planning to build three Wiestinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors with a combined output of some 3.6GW, scheduled to operate from 2024.

None from me; sounds a bit non-scientific. Maybe it comes from the design feature which allows the AP1000 to produce a smaller volume of more highly radioactive waste than its predecessors. This is seen as an operational advantage, a selling point by Westinghouse._________________http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

The development has hit a number of obstacles in recent months, such as Toshiba's US arm Westinghouse, which is producing reactors for Moorside, filing for bankruptucy, which led to Toshiba chairman Shigenori Shiga stepping down and French investors Engie backing out of the scheme.

Chris Jukes, GMB Senior Organiser, has now called on the UK Government to intervene.

GMB are trying to flog it as a zero carbon development! What about all the concrete and fossil fuels in its building and the subsequent decommissioning costs?

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Britain needs this vital new infrastructure, and the reliable zero carbon electricity it will produce, and it is the Government's responsibility to make sure it is built and in a timely manner.

The AP1000 design is a curious choice. Construction has so far commenced on ten AP1000s, six in the US and four in China, and another three are scheduled to begin soon. However two of the ten have been suspended, presumed abandoned, and the other eight are all running several years late and hugely over cost. Not one has ever been completed.

But a new report published today highlights a completely separate problem: the design is intrinsically unsafe.

Sounds a bit like the Hinckley point reactors that haven't been completed by EDF anywhere on the globe! Is this all just a con by the nuclear power lobby to get vast sums of money into their coffers to build something whose costs will continually escalate but that will never be completed or commissioned!_________________"When the last tree is cut down, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find out that you cannot eat money". --The Cree Indians

Letter to my MP on the above. Feel free to modify the wording for your own MP.

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Dear Richard

I see that the Moorside Nuclear Power Station has been postponed until at least 2025 (1) and that the GMB are asking the government to intervene.

In view of an article in the Ecologist (2) and the report commissioned by Radiation Free Lakeland (3) the government should indeed intervene but to stop the the development completely on safety grounds.

It is interesting to note from the article

"The AP1000 design is a curious choice. Construction has so far commenced on ten AP1000s, six in the US and four in China, and another three are scheduled to begin soon. However two of the ten have been suspended, presumed abandoned, and the other eight are all running several years late (4) and hugely over cost. Not one has ever been completed."

This sounds a lot like the record of the EDF reactors being built, or not built according to how you look at the situation, by EDF at Hinckley. Not one of their design has been successfully built to time and cost and commissioned anywhere in the world. Do you detect a pattern here? Large corporations tender for essentially government backed projects that the corporations know will never be completed but that they can cash in on for decades at taxpayer expense. Is this yet another incidence of corporate fraud at taxpayers expense here?

You have often told me that governments shouldn't get involved in commercial decisions because they are not very good at commerce. It would seem that this might be a situation where governments should leave these investment decisions to the market which has consistently refused to back these projects without a government guarantee.

Please could you stand by your words and refuse to back these failing projects especially as other renewable technologies can provide the power at far less cost and with far less hazard to our environment.

The development has hit a number of obstacles in recent months, such as Toshiba's US arm Westinghouse, which is producing reactors for Moorside, filing for bankruptucy, which led to Toshiba chairman Shigenori Shiga stepping down and French investors Engie backing out of the scheme.

Chris Jukes, GMB Senior Organiser, has now called on the UK Government to intervene.

GMB are trying to flog it as a zero carbon development!

An extremely common lie which totally ignores the energy cost of producing, processing and transporting the fuel plus the huge devastation it causes._________________"Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fụck the Buddhists" - Bjork

I agree with that fully, Em._________________"When the last tree is cut down, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find out that you cannot eat money". --The Cree Indians

When looked at from a whole-project perspective, a nuclear power station has to be CO₂ negative, albeit less so than an equivalent coal or gas station.

When you take into account the countless eons trying to protect the biosphere from the nuclear waste produced, the whole exercise makes the human race look really rather pathetic._________________"Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fụck the Buddhists" - Bjork

Decay heat is ~.003 x 3400000000 = 10.2MW after 7 days! This is good apparently.

10.2MW of decay heat is not that much, it is broadly comparable to the waste heat produced by a single steam railway locomotive._________________"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"

Nuclear clearly isn't 'zero' carbon, nothing is. But I'm happy to describe as 'low carbon', in the same ballpark as wind for example.

It can only be labelled thus if it is actually generating any electricity.

To date the AP1000 reactors have yet to generate their first watt.

All at an ever escalating cost to boot_________________A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools - Douglas Adams.

Same as the EDF/Aviva reactors! Brings up the question of have we got the skills to design and build a safe reactor nowadays. Looks doubtful at the moment._________________"When the last tree is cut down, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find out that you cannot eat money". --The Cree Indians